Magic Mirror - Curator
The curation of Magic Mirror brings together French surrealist artist, writer and activist Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and contemporary London artist filmmaker Sarah Pucill in a collaborative dialogue across time and space. Sharing an engagement with Surrealism, the layering of Pucill and Cahun’s work embraces the uncanny in relation to the inanimate. Their work explores the idea of a multiple ‘self’ and of looking, as both artists assert a queer gaze between mirror, camera and across two centuries. Pucill’s film Magic Mirror combines a re-staging of Cahun’s photographs and visualisation of written text from her book Aveux non avenus (Disavowals), transforming Cahun’s work from still to moving image whilst exploring the relationship between word, photography and sound in film. Cahun’s history and many ‘selves’ are explored as she masquerades her many identities - “Under this mask another mask. I shall never finish taking off all these faces.” (Cahun). Through text, photography and film, the exhibition mixes and questions authorship, medium and identity. The Show formed part of the Nunnery Gallery In Dialogue season, a year-long exploration of partnerships, artistic inspirations and deeply involved relationships between the artist and the muse.
Supported by Bow Arts and the Arts Council England - Grant For Arts.
